STEPPE Magazine launched in 2006 covers the arts, culture, history, landscape and people of Central Asia. Steppe is a beautiful, glossy, coffee-table kind of magazine with in-depth feature articles on topics of interest within the above remit. It is a niche publication, which is independently run.
In the forthcoming issue, STEPPE SIX, will have a 30-page feature article on life along the Pyanj River, the upper reaches of the Oxus – which is a predominantly Ismaili area. Previously the magazine has reviewed both the Serena Kabul (Issue 1) and the Serena Khorog (Issue 5) hotels, and it had a beautiful snapshot of the Pamiri villagers with a portrait of the Aga Khan in Issue 3.
This photograph was taken in an Ismaili village situated on the Pamir Highway in southeastern Tajikistan during Didar (‘Invitation’) – a celebration that takes place on 28 May every year and commemorates the anniversary of the Aga Khan’s visit to the village in the late 1990s. During the celebrations the villagers dress up, dance outdoors to the accordion and drums and sing ginane (religious songs about the Aga Khan), which tell of him being their noor (light). The photograph was taken as these girls, dressed in bright atlas silk fabric with crowns on their heads, were going out to dance. Photograph by Matthieu Paley
Ismailimail 